|
|
The bulk of this supplementary collection was found in the Manuscripts Division of the South Caroliniana Library of the University of South Carolina. Others were found in the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress. They are all interviews with people not interviewed in the Rare Book Room collection of the Library of Congress. Thus, there is no evidence of any tampering with the manuscripts in order to make them appear different than originally written. However, many of the narratives in this series reflect a concern with the dialect of the South Carolina sea islands and with the folk tales and songs of these "Gullah" people. Often they appear to be little more than random bits of conversation.
Nevertheless, there is a certain solidity about these new narrative finds for South Carolina. Included are a number of items written by Stiles M. Scruggs of Columbia, South Carolina, who was interested in talking with blacks whose ancestors had been famous blacks under slavery and Reconstruction. There is an interview with Bevelina Pearson, the granddaughter of Beverly Nash, a leading black political figure during "black reconstruction" in South Carolina and a delegate to the 1868 constitutional convention. Another is with Joshua Rivers, son of Prince Rivers, a black Major General of Militia in Reconstruction South Carolina and a Justice of the Peace during the Hamburg Riot of 1876. There is one with Israel Nesbitt, great-grandson of Robert Nesbitt, a black who was acquitted of insurrectionary charges in 1822 in connection with the uprising of Denmark Vesey. There is an interview with Martha Lowery who was born a free black in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1853.
Chester Chisolm, Democratic representative of Colleton County in the South Carolina House of Representatives for ten years, had a son, Tom Chisolm, a sixty-two year old bricklayer who was interviewed by Scruggs. Also interviewed was George Cato, a direct descendant of Cato, the slave who led the Stono Insurrection of 1739. This remarkable set of interviews indicates the strength of the oral tradition among South Carolina blacks.
An important memorandum has been placed with this collection, a letter from Miss Mabel Montgomery to Workers Who Prepare Ex-Slave Stories. In it she gives directions as to the use of dialect. In connection with a list that accompanies the memorandum on how to render words in dialect she writes: "Consult the list of tabooed words and do not use them. Our desire is for easy reading and a complicated dialect does not produce that result. We who live in the south are so accustomed to Negro speech that we forget how difficult it is to be understood by people from other sections."
This supplementary collection includes interviews with forty-eight males and thirty-one females. Eighteen were born after 1866, sixteen between 1860 and 1865, nine between 1855 and 1859, seven after 1850 and before 1855, eight between 1845 and 1849, two between 1840 and 1844, three between 1835 and 1839, and one between 1830 and 1834. There were thirteen people for whom no date of birth could be found or deduced from the context.
During the Civil War days, marriages were attended with big infairs or frolics, often with square-dances and cake-walks. Whiskey or wine was served. For the cake-walks, marks were made on the ground in place of shooting, so that the holder of a stick would receive the cake when a horn was blown or when he was on the mark.
Men wore corduroy pants and boots. Women wore wide hoopskirts, fluffy sleeves and high collars. Straw hats were made at home out of wheat straw which was dried out.
The section always made their own sauerkraut and raised all other foods, including pork and beef. They had fine big gardens. In summer, eight families would go together in killing and dividing one beef; in winter, four families would divide a beef, each taking a quarter and taking turn about in furnishing the cow. The hides of the animals were tanned and used for making shoes. Leather was scarce during that time. Some shoes were made with wooden soles.
The signs were observed in planting --- dark of the moon for root vegetables and light of the moon for corn and plants that fruit above the ground.
At the many corn-shuckings and cotton pickings there were frolics or dances by the young folks, with suppers and whiskey. Prizes were given for the ones shucking the most corn.
(Beas, Welcome, Murrells Inlet, S.C., Georgetown County, Mrs. Genevieve W. Chandler)
